Texas Criminal Legislative Update: March 16, 2015
The 84th Texas Legislative Session is in full-swing in Austin, and you may want to know what new laws our legislators are considering and which old laws might get a facelift.
Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston) has already passed an important bill out of Committee. SB 135 is designed to replace Texas’ antiquated “pick-a-pal” Grand Jury system (the last remaining in the country) with a jury pool system designed to reflect the community’s diversity.
Senator Joan Huffman (R-Houston) filed SB 174, which would deny community supervision sentences for “illegal alien” offenders. University of Houston Professor Geoffrey Hoffman quickly repudiated the bill’s intent and outlined its unconstitutionality in a Houston Chronicle article titled “Houston Senator’s ‘Illegal Aliens’ Bill Is Itself Illegal.”
Senators Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) and Royce West (D-Dallas) filed legislation to speed up appointment of counsel in cases where the arrested person is deemed to be indigent. SB 1517 would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure to require counties with a population of less than 250,000 to appoint criminal counsel within three days of their receipt of request from the arrested person, and require counties with a population of more than 250,000 to appoint counsel within one day.
Representative Debbie Riddle (R-Houston) has filed >HB 1748 which would create a new criminal offense for people who enter a restroom labeled for the opposite sex, even after having reassignment surgery. For this she presumably received a glitter bomb in her Capitol office.
On the other side of the aisle, Representative David Simpson (R-Longview) has also filed some interesting legislation designed to scale back the government’s ability to conduct civil asset forfeitures, and to decriminalize marijuana commerce. HB 3171 would require counties and municipalities to secure a criminal conviction before they are permitted to pursue a civil asset forfeiture (for items such as vehicles, cash, and weapons). The Texas Observer has written an article summarizing similarly-filed legislation, and this San Angelo Standard-Times editorial explains why this distinction is so important.
Rep. Simpson’s HB 2165 would allow marijuana to be sold and taxed the same as any other agricultural commodity. In his Texas Tribune article, “The Christian Case for Marijuana Reform,” Rep. Simpson states, “I don’t believe that when God made marijuana he made a mistake that government needs to fix.” Along similar lines, Representative Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) recently introduced HB 3326 which is designed to reduce marijuana and less-than-a-gram possession penalties.
